Most entrepreneurs consider outsourcing at some point. This past week was my moment. It has been incredibly busy and exhausting. It all started last Wednesday when I took a webinar and realised my website was not living up to its full potential. Hence the mass changes. Knowing I could not do it all, I looked into outsourcing. Then I checked my bank account. It didn’t seem like outsourcing was going to happen. Until a little voice said, “I’ll help you.”

Outsourcing to B

Yup. That little voice belonged to B. After watching me slave away at dealing with the fallout of switching from WordPress.com to WordPress.org for a more functional website I was a mess. It was affecting our homeschool. I scrapped read aloud time because I was freaking out my website was offline. Not such a big deal. The BIG deal was my lack of patience. Because of exhaustion, B’s normal goofiness during lessons felt like nails on a chalkboard to me. (thank goodness whiteboards don’t make that sound!)

I knew I lacked patience; so I warned B. “Mommy has zero tolerance for not paying attention today.” Seriously! What was I thinking? Like an 8-year-old boy is going to remember that for more than 5 minutes. Eventually, I snapped. I hate to admit it, but I yelled. Lessons came to a complete halt. B went to his room and had a cry. I had a time out. We did regroup and rally to finish things off with smiles. And I’m off “mommy duty” for the night and have done self-care.

Outsourcing Because B is Cheap?

It’s definitely a bonus, but not the reason why. Part of the reason is simply because he offered. I could be some super, awesome, homeschool mom who says it’s a great lesson to learn, but that’s not really true. Or at least not entirely true.

After I had agreed to let B help I was still talking myself into it. Weird I know, but that’s just the way I am. I realised that outsourcing my work to my kid is a great #homeschool lesson. Click To Tweet It also teaches him that even though it’s a job I thoroughly love doing, it’s still hard. Putting the effort in when things are hard is something B struggles with. B is an exceptional kid. Most of what he does requires minimal effort. When effort is required, B gets frustrated easily and wants to quit before he really gets going. Quitting is harder in a 1:1 class.

Why B Offered

I’m not going to lie. I’m broke. Like broker than broke. My credit card is maxed out. My bank account is currently $63. We have just enough food to last us until when I can get groceries again. I owe friends and student loans. It’s overwhelming. Every spare penny I have is going to launch my online unit studies. I’m being as frugal as possible but that means a lot more work. I could easily outsource the majority of my website/social media work and focus on writing curriculum but I simply can’t afford it.

And all the while, B wants to go to Vancouver. And now, because I let it slip, B knows I’m going to Vancouver for a conference this week without him. So on top of our craptacular day, we had to have a heart to heart about our plans for going to Vancouver together. While we have people to stay with in Vancouver, it costs money just to get off the island we live on. Then there’s the cost of everything we want to do when we’re actually in Vancouver. As we talk about what we want to do and the cost of it all I became brutally honest with B about my business. I’m doing all this work to keep costs down and bring in more profit. And B shocks me! He says, “I’ll help you.”

I sat there for a moment and realised the benefits of outsourcing to my kid (which is probably why my mind went down the rabbit hole of why’s):

First and foremost – B will earn his way to Vancouver.

If B finds videos for the online unit studies it will increase the likelihood that kids will like them.

We’ll be working together on a project.

Other Benefits

Since my mind went down that rabbit hole of why’s I’ll share some of my other thoughts.

Having a goal for him to work towards will motivate him.

I can pay him a percentage of sales based on how much he works on each unit study.

He’ll get hands-on experience with running a business.

This will be B’s first job.

I am excited, renewed and am again optimistic now that I have help with getting the first online unit studies launched.

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